Linda and Morris Tannehill opine in The Market for Liberty that physically claiming the land (e.g. by fencing it in or prominently staking it out) should be enough to obtain good title:
An old and much respected theory holds that for a man to come into possession of a previously unowned value it is necessary for him to “mix his labor with the land” to make it his own. But this theory runs into difficulties when one attempts to explain what is meant by “mixing labor with land.” Just how much labor is required, and of what sort? If a man digs a large hole in his land and then fills it up again, can he be said to have mixed his labor with the land? Or is it necessary to effect a somewhat permanent change in the land? If so, how permanent?..Or is it necessary to effect some improvement in the economic value of the land? If so, how much and how soon?..Would a man lose title to his land if he had to wait ten months for a railroad line to be built before he could improve the land?..And what of the naturalist who wanted to keep his land exactly as it was in its wild state to study its ecology?..[M]ixing one’s labor with the land is too ill-defined a concept and too arbitrary a requirement to serve as a criterion of ownership.[3]
This is the spirit of my question, worded more succinctly.
I would say fencing would be generally a normal procedure in some circumstances, also I think the Lockean notion of ‘mixing one’s labor’ is confused and probably nonsensical (what is ‘labor’?) But I would still reiterate: whatever the people involved will accept.
Your recommendation of Fuller and De Jasay peaked my interest. If I could recommend a concise book on these topics you have presented, what would it be? Fuller’s The Morality of Law?
If I could recommend a concise book on these topics you have presented, what would it be? Fuller’s The Morality of Law?
Yes, along with de Jasay’s Justice and Its Surroundings. Parts of the latter are available online at the Online Library of Liberty.
It has been a while since I read Bastiat’s The Law, but as I recall I thought it was good - though it’s obviously a very brief treatment of the subject.
A book called De Jasay and His Surroundings is also good, particularly the essay in it by Jan Narveson; another author I read for a contractarian angle on justice and rights.
It’s not a matter of knowing what “justice” is or is not. There is no inherent meaning to the word “justice”. So let me ask you again, how are you defining “theory of justice”, as well as “justice” itself?
I asked that question in response to your question, “As long as everyone involved agrees to be bound by the arbitration results, who cares?” How can they find an arbiter together if one of them doesn’t agree to be bound by the arbitration results?
I’m not saying there’s no way to deal with this – I’m just trying to find out your stance on the issue.
What’s the basis for estoppel procedures? I mean, where does estoppel arise from? Is there any guarantee that estoppel will always arise?
That depends on how you define “system”, doesn’t it? It seems you’re sneaking in the premise of universalizability. Strictly speaking, there’s nothing illogical about a system that says “I win no matter what”.
Presumption of innocence is a norm, right? Yet earlier you wrote that not presuming innocence was a logical impossibility. It seems that you’re contradicting yourself between here and there.
I read your link on “classificationism”. While I agree with Manuel Lora’s sentiment, I can’t help but notice that he doesn’t define “classificationism” anywhere in his blog post. Wiktionary defines “classificationism” as “the belief that things are best understood by being assigned to categories”. It would seem, then, that human language itself is inherently classificationist. After all, words depend on definitions, which denote the “limits” (Latin definire “to limit off, to set bounds on”) of meaning for that word. I think what you’re really opposing here is the notion that a single organization presumes the rights to 1) stand in as a silent third party to every agreement, and 2) therefore trump those agreements when it wants to. That doesn’t have much to do with “classificationism” per se, IMO.
On another note, Stephen Adkins confirmed my claim about the OP, so your comment on “[deciding] how many hectares you can claim by digging a ditch” seems to be moot.
But then, following that logic, the Spanish conquistadores who claimed huge swaths of the Americas for Spain were not following the Homesteading Principle either; yet their claims were honored (by the Spanish government and, ultimately, other European governments). So we have a situation where, as Epicurus ibn Kalhoun pointed out in another thread, large areas of land have been owned under false pretenses, in a libertarian sense. I think the OP was trying to reconcile these things.
For better or for worse, most people think of “mob rule” as being unconstrained. What you’re talking about sounds more like “the rule of law” to most people (though that phrase itself has been perverted by some). Your question of “how can we keep them from running roughshod over one another in the process” is the question of how to maintain “the rule of law”. IMO, anarcho-capitalism provides the most cogent answer to those questions.
Finally, I’d like to point out that you still haven’t give me your definition of “law”. Can you please do so? I see no reason why you couldn’t.